marine biology Archive

  • Killer Whales Die without Chinook Salmon

    Killer Whales Die without Chinook Salmon

    When you mention killer whales, the image of one ambushing a terrified seal often springs to mind. But there are populations of killer whales who live exclusively on fish. And not on just any fish: they are very specialised in which fish they will eat. According to research published in Biology Letters, two populations studied [...]

    Read More

  • Rare Algae Saves Caribbean Coral

    Rare Algae Saves Caribbean Coral

    A rare opportunity has allowed a team of scientists to evaluate corals–and the essential, photosynthetic algae that live inside their cells–before, during, and after a period in 2005 when global warming caused sea-surface temperatures in the Caribbean to rise. The team, led by Penn State biologist Todd LaJeunesse, found that a rare species of algae [...]

    Read More

  • Creature of the Month: Dragonet, Callionymus lyra

    Creature of the Month: Dragonet, Callionymus lyra

    One hundred and eighty-six species of the “Little Dragon” fish live from Iceland in the North to the Indo-Pacific oceans in the South. You will find the species we are concentrating on today, Callionymus lyra, from Norway to Senegal: in the Eastern Atlantic and the North, Irish, Mediterranean, Black, Baltic, Aegean and other Seas. The [...]

    Read More

  • Third of Pelagic Sharks Threatened with Extinction

    Third of Pelagic Sharks Threatened with Extinction

    The first study to determine the global conservation status of 64 species of open ocean (pelagic) sharks and rays reveals that 32 percent are threatened with extinction, primarily due to overfishing, according to the IUCN Shark Specialist Group. “Despite mounting threats, sharks remain virtually unprotected on the high seas,” says Sonja Fordham, Deputy Chair of [...]

    Read More

  • Antarctic marine biodiversity data now online

    Antarctic marine biodiversity data now online

    New web portal provides free and open access to information on antarctic marine species. The SCAR-MarBIN portal lets users browse, see and search different types of data, including over 2000 photos and videos. Entries are geo-referenced so users can discover what is found where. The database now offers access to over one million records from [...]

    Read More

  • Crabs feel and remember pain

    Crabs feel and remember pain

    New research published by a Queen’s University academic has shown that crabs not only suffer pain but that they retain a memory of it. The study, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, looked at the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks. It was was carried out by Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel [...]

    Read More

  • CO2 emissions harm jumbo squid

    CO2 emissions harm jumbo squid

    The elevated carbon dioxide levels expected to be found in the world’s oceans by 2100 will likely lead to physiological impairments of jumbo (or Humboldt) squid, according to research by two University of Rhode Island (URI) scientists. The researchers subjected the squids (Dosidicus gigas) to elevated concentrations of CO2 equivalent to those likely to be [...]

    Read More

  • Sea snakes drink only freshwater

    Sea snakes drink only freshwater

    Sea snakes may slither in saltwater, but they sip the sweet stuff. So concludes a University of Florida zoologist in a paper appearing this month in the online edition of the November/December issue of the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. Harvey Lillywhite says it has been the “long-standing dogma” that the roughly 60 species of [...]

    Read More

  • One Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Extinction

    One Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Extinction

    One third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. The study findings were published yesterday by Science Express. Leading coral experts joined forces with the Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) – a joint initiative of the International Union for Conservation [...]

    Read More

  • Cleaner fish create safe havens

    Cleaner fish create safe havens

    Cleaner fish are well known to divers on the reef. They eat parasites from much larger fish, many of which are normally predators. Some of these predators let the little cleaners safely enter their mouth and gills. A single cleaner fish can clean more than 2,300 fish a day from over 130 species and each [...]

    Read More